 92.7 WOBM with Bing Crosby on your Monday morning. It is December 11th. Shawn Michaels in with you. And joining me right now is Dr. Lawrence Daniels, the medical director of pediatric neurosurgery at Hackensack Meridian Health, K. Habnadian Children's Hospital. Dr. Daniels, good morning and welcome to the show today. Good morning, thank you for having me. Now, let's talk about now, when we talk about incidents of wintertime injuries, you obviously see an increase of injuries, maybe possibly head injuries this time of year, skiing, ice skating, things like that. I mean, just the idea of there, there's lots of snow and ice out there and people are taking falls. I guess these all contribute to the increase in injuries that you might see at this time of year. Correct. Yeah. Now, let me ask you, what are some of the common injuries or conditions that you treat when you see kids through the hospital when we talk about neurosurgery? So the common injuries that occur over the summer associated with accidents and trauma, considering the fact that trauma is the leading cause of death and pediatric patients. So what we see and what we're concerned about and what we want to make people aware of are those injuries associated with activities that have children engaging in high-velocity sports, ice skating, hockey, or even riding bicycles, riding the four-wheelers and so forth and doing these things without protection of the cranium in the head, I mean, the form of a helmet. These are the injuries that we see and if you have a patient who has a helmet, it could be something as minimal as a concussion, which might require taking a child out of school and monitoring them, but it can be as severe as a fracture in the skull or bleeding in the brain. That might require me, a neurosurgeon, to go in and take out the blood to prevent it from causing damage to the brain. Let me ask you, do you, as a doctor, feel that enough people take precautions when they ski and skate? And you don't always see kids wearing helmets when they're skiing, you don't see them even when they're skating. So this is a tough thing to get them, hey, put a helmet on, put a helmet on. That has to be a situation that parents have to deal with, I guess, this time of year. It is very difficult. I mean, even in my own life, with my nephews, getting my nephews to wear helmets when I'm not around sometimes could be very difficult, but I have experiences where I can show them the consequences, albeit rare, but the consequences of not wearing a helmet, something as severe as having to have emergency surgery and being in a hospital or, God forbid, having a portion of your brain be injured. So because of my experience, being able to show them these things, it's a little bit easier for me to convince them to do it. But at the end of the day, the parents have to convince the children that this is important, and although it might be rare, it's so severe that even if it happens only once or twice a season, it impacts an individual in the surrounding community quite significantly. Yeah, because I mean, the increase of skiing and snowboarding and ice skating that goes on during the winter, we've got to think about these things. I mean, the same way in the summertime, it's tough to always remember and to remind the kids, grab your helmet before you're grabbing your bike. Grab your helmet, grab your helmet. And how many of us have said that? Over and over again in the kids, you know, hopefully are listening to us to do that. How do folks get more information on winter safety and pediatric neurosurgery, doctor? How do you go about getting more information? Well, you know, at Khabnani Insurance Hospital, we have a website that you can go to and get information on winter safety and how to, you know, be cautious and prevent some of these accidents from happening. You can go to the urlkhabnaniinsurancehospital.com for its last neurosurgery. Very good. Last question for you. Are there different types of helmets for different ages and such that parents want to look into? Or pretty much when you go to your different, you know, whether it's a bike shop or whether you're going to a ski shop or so forth, they can outline for you what types you need. I mean, obviously there's different styles and all that, but are there different types needed for kids of different ages? So yes, in terms of size, right? Yeah. Obviously, the different age, the different size of the skull. But in addition to that, what's more important than that is the activity. Different activities will require different helmets because different activities require different speeds and different risks. So definitely the place that you're engaging in the activity with or the place where you're buying the equipment to engage in the activity, talk to them about what type of helmets will be appropriate for a child. Because I've seen some that I don't even know if they're like safety-approved, like they look like they're more decoration than anything else. And I guess there's others that are, you know, specifically designed and approved by, you know, certain things for it to be safe, you know, for kids to use. But I'll tell you, you know, in terms of marketing to children, there are a lot of, you know, funky looking helmets. Yeah, there's cool looking ones. Yeah, that they can use. But it's more to convince children that this is something that they should wear. Yeah, definitely, definitely. Be safe this winter. You know, you're out there on ice, you're on snow. There's a lot of slipping and sliding. Protect your head, wear the helmet. And we want to thank Dr. Lawrence Daniels, Medical Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Hackensack Meridian Health, Kay Habanadian Children's Hospital for joining us. Dr. Lawrence after this week, Dr. Daniels after this weekend with all that snow and ice that we had, it's time to get ready for all this now. Absolutely, absolutely. Sort of took us by surprise there. Hey, we'll be back in just a moment. We'll check out what's happening with Kevin Williams and his hometown view. It's all next on WROBM.